Five Handy Air Quality Apps To Help Reduce Exposure

Beijing’s air quality index reached unprecedented levels earlier this year, which made it a major concern. While living in Beijing it’s handy to know the pollution levels so as to plan what type of activities you and your family will be doing. The following five apps recommended can provide a way to monitor the air quality index other than the commonly recognized China Air Quality Index app.

Beijing Air Quality by Longcat Labs

The app is in Chinese and English and uses the US embassy data. It contains a widget with hourly updated data. It contains charts that show the pollution reading on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. According to a tech blog via the China Daily:

The app allows you to create a widget on your home screen that informs you about the air quality whenever your screen is on.

Only available for android users.

Beijing Air Quality Widget by insdio

This app also has a widget, which fetches data when the home screen is active. This is in English only and uses various air quality indices such as SO2 and the commonly used PM 2.5. According to the tech blog:

The UI (user interface) is quite straightforward and simple, and there is not even a single picture on the main app. If you press one of the options, you will be taken to the developer’s website, which shows the results you want to find.

Only available for android users.

China AQI by Bood Qian

The app is in both Chinese and English as the cities are displayed in Chinese but the readings in English. The app uses data from the US embassy in Beijing also from the US consulates in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu to show reading from those cities as well. According to the tech blog:

It also has a widget that can tell you about the PM 2.5 readings on your home screen.

This app has real-time functions and a forecast function but only available in Chinese. The user interface is easy to understand as the day’s readings are prominently featured. According to the tech blog:

It provides PM 2.5 readings for some areas but only PM 10 readings, which are of less concern, for others.

If you press the "Forecast (预报)" button, PM 2.5 forecast for the next 24 hours is provided, but sometimes the data can’t be retrieved.

Available for both android and iOS.

Tianqitong- Sina

The app is only available in Chinese and was primarily as a source for weather information but now it has more integrated functions. According to the tech blog:

Among its most featured functions is the integration of some of China’s super stars’ voices into its clock function, which can wake you up every morning with voice weather forecasts.

The PM 2.5 data is from China Environmental Monitoring Center, which is believed by some to publish lower modified figures.